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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23105611">Spinning</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodelf/pseuds/woodelf'>woodelf</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:34:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>474</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23105611</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodelf/pseuds/woodelf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 1 AU fluff.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Spinning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He does not spin only straw.</p><p>It was a wonder, at first, to see the golden thread build up on the spindle. He spun enough to buy his castle, and its furnishings. Then he spun enough to ensure that he would still be the master of his own life should he ever lose the magic. That he knows of only one way to break the curse – his own death by the dagger that bears his name – does not mean that another does not exist.</p><p>By then the novelty had worn off. Straw, as a fiber, is coarse, brittle, splits easily. There is no pleasure in the handling of it, magic or no. He still spins to forget, but flax or wool serve just as well, and are more immediately useful. When a baby passes through his hands as part of a deal, it is delivered to its new parents – ones that will cherish it properly – wrapped in a blanket with subtle magic for good luck and health woven into its very fibers.</p><p>But then there is Belle, and he spins straw into gold again, for that is what is expected, what will impress. Until the day that she kisses him. He feels his magic slipping away, catches hold of it in panic, drags it back into himself. He starts to rage, until he sees the fear and incomprehension in her eyes. She hadn’t known. And so he tells her. Everything.</p><p>He no longer spins to forget. Instead he spins her tales of his son, of his bright, shining Baelfire, and she says that they will find him, that they will be a family.</p><p>He spins hair – a lock of hers and a lock of his own, entwined with a thick gold thread, to symbolise how their lives are now entwined. He fashions it into a bracelet, and gifts it to her. She treasures it.</p><p>He spins wool, good honest sheep’s wool, white and black and grey, the lanolin in the fleece softening the roughness caused by the sharp-edged straw and the Dark One’s curse. Belle watches the thick, soft yarn come off the wheel and asks for a loom.</p><p>She is no master weaver, but she knows weft from warp, and the use of a shuttle, and begins a simple blanket. Her skill grows daily, and as the first bumpy rows of uneven tension become a tight, even weave, she is proud of her work.</p><p>As they work together in quiet companionship, Rumpelstiltskin thinks he could not be any happier.</p><p>Until she gives him her news.</p><p>He searches out the softest fleece that he can find, wool dyed in soft blues and greens, and warm reds and yellows.</p><p>He spins now for the child that is coming.</p><p>And Belle weaves a multi-hued blanket to wrap their child in, to welcome it into the world.</p>
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